Brodeur, BlackBerry settle $700k lawsuit

A lawsuit Brodeur Partners filed in September against former client BlackBerry, alleging it was never paid for its work during the launch campaign for the BlackBerry 10 operating system and Q10 and Z10 smartphones, has been settled.

BOSTON: A lawsuit Brodeur Partners filed in September against former client BlackBerry, alleging it was never paid for its work during the launch campaign for the BlackBerry 10 operating system and Q10 and Z10 smartphones, has been settled.

“We can only confirm that the matter has been settled,” BlackBerry corporate communications manager Lisette Kwong said. The company would not comment further.

Brodeur CEO Andy Coville, and the plaintiff's attorney, Dahlia Fetouh of Goodwin Procter, declined to comment on the settlement.

The agency sued for $700,000, representing more than 3,000 hours of work from late 2012 into 2013, for which it said it was not compensated. Brodeur claimed in the suit that its staffers often worked “around the clock to deliver on BlackBerry's frequent and last minute demands.”

Brodeur, which served as the smartphone maker's PR agency in North America for 16 years, claimed that the campaign resulted in more than 13,000 news articles and broadcast stories in North America alone.